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Monthly Archives: August 2013

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Well, well, well, look who it is! It’s meeeeeeee! I’ve been simply buried my darlings. The last couple months of my life have been completely taken up with the Great Job Hunt of 2013. It was epic, and successful! Whew! Now that I’m gainfully employed I can turn my attention back to the important things like blogging! Lucky you!

So, last fall I did an internship with Hollyhock. I’m not going to go into detail about what they do here because you can get all of that information over on their great website. Suffice it to say that it’s a great organization and I highly recommend checking them out! As kind of a thank you I had the pleasure of attending one of their workshops on Cortes Island this past weekend. It.was.fantastic. It was a nine hour trek to get to Cortes Island from my beloved Vancouver, but it was well worth the long haul. Cortes Island is astonishingly beautiful, all lush, and green, and rugged. I’m pretty sure I saw a lynx… even though the lovely driver of the van I took to Hollyhock from the ferry landing was pretty sure it was a domestic cat. Potato potato right?

The workshop I took part in was called Photographing the Flowers of Hollyhock and we did exactly that! We spent our sessions in Hollyhock’s insanely gorgeous garden and I relished every second. There were only three of us taking the workshop so we each got loads of individual attention from our totally fab instructor, Allan Mandell.

There was a painting workshop taking place at the same time, and also a few people who were just there on holiday so there was lots of company.

Now let me tell you about the food. It was divine. *Swoon*. It was mostly vegetarian and nearly all of it comes from their garden. I stuffed myself shamelessly. It was glorious. They made salad dressings that tempted me to drink them straight up. One morning there was strawberry lemonade bread. I heard angels sing when I ate it.

The best part of the workshop? The strawberry lemonade bread beautiful photographs I have and the wonderful people I met.

So I’m not that into sparkle – on my face. I feel like my skin is shiny enough on its own and I certainly don’t want to make that any more evident. Honestly, NASA could use my face to direct rockets home. But I digress.

I’ve recently become obsessed with the idea of a powder highlighter. Nothing too shiney (like a certain Benefit product that shall remain unnamed Highbeam), and nothing too crazy expensive. I went into Shopper’s a couple weeks ago with intent of using up my beloved Optimum points to replenishing a few necessities. $60 worth of points later I walked out with one blush and one highlighter. I’m a practical girl you understand. *Ahem*.

The highlighter? Smashbox Soft Lights Shimmer. This stuff is pretty dreamy. I’ve worn it every day since I bought it. It’s a super pale pinky shade with just the barest hint of shimmer.

The formula is nice. It’s pretty soft and takes to the skin well. If you’re looking for something understated this is a good choice. There is a lot of product, which is always great. The price point is in the $30 range which is spendy but it’ll last for a long time. I give this highlighter two thumbs up.